CFT-Aurora Australis Golden West Rail Tour 2

Thursday 12 November 2020

After my allocated shower and breakfast times this morning I took a walk into Paterson with Carolyn (Lyn) and although nothing much was open it had a large number of old buildings of historical significance and some beautiful views of the river.

We then boarded our buses and were driven to the Hunter Valley Wine area centred around the Hunter River Gardens. Our first activity here was a 5 minute devotion time in a lovely little secluded corner of the Gardens.

Jenny, Lyn and I decided to stay at the Gardens rather than go to the shopping village (all tourist shops) or even the wineries. Many of the others took the hop-on-hop-off buses to the wineries, galleries and shops.

I loved some of the ground covers with distinct Asian influences.

Unfortunately much of the Gardens was marred by garishly coloured lighting fixtures for their Christmas Lights show which would be great at night but during the day it just looked like junk.

After our lunch at the cafe we found the delightful Japanese garden. It was stunning and had no plastic lighting set up. We watched the coix carp in the ponds and even some turtles out sunning themselves on the rocks.

Eventually it was back on the buses to Maitland Station where we were met by our train. A long walk inside the train to our end of the train which did not fit on the platform of course.

We then had a journey further north to Werris Creek through the lovely hills where we had fun watching our engine on the curves and then horse studs of the area and later crops of various kinds.

Eventually we pulled into a Werris Creek siding where our engines were moved from on end of the train to the other in preparation for our journey west tomorrow.

Four of us (Lyn, Jenny, Ros and I) worked out that if we sat in pairs at dinner (we are only allowed 2 at a table for 4 to meet Covid rules) and alternated our pairs each meal we would not be with the same people all the time and we could share alternate options for meals thus tasting all the delicious food. This worked well tonight anyway.

As the sun set we were moved to the platform at Werris Creek to see the Railway Museum which was opened especially for us. Unfortunately I missed this as I was done in by the time we could actually get off the train.